Mari didn't know how long she travelled in the hellhound's mouth. With each bound, she nearly slammed into the hellhound's hard palate. Her crocs slipped against the slobbery tonsils. It was like the most disgusting roller coaster ride on earth.
Finally they stopped, and the hellhound spat her out.
Quick as she could, Mari rolled away. Far, far away. She kept rolling until she hit a pair of feet. She looked up to see the tense face of Annabeth Chase. Annabeth knelt but then scooted away. Mari couldn't blame her. She was absolutely covered in hellhound saliva. Arms, legs, it was even in her hair. She didn't think all the showers in the world would be enough to make the feeling go away.
"You okay?" Annabeth asked.
"I'm... definitely a cat person. That was horrible." Mari turned to point at the giant hellhound, but there was nothing to point to. The hellhound was gone. Shame bubbled up in her stomach. Horrifying or not, the hellhound had saved her life. Mari didn't want it dead. Just in permanent obedience school. Maybe.
Mari looked around. The labyrinth had led them to an old room. Dusty marble columns lined the walls, interspersed with badly lit torches. It was huge, the size of the entire dining pavilion at camp, and there was even a crack down the middle of the floor mirroring the one that Mari now knew to be the work of Nico Di Angelo. The crack looked recent. Mari wondered if seismic activity was an issue in the labyrinth. This certainly didn't look structurally sound.
"You people are crazy." Ethan Nakamura collapsed into a heap on the floor, pulling off his helmet. His sweaty face looked shiny in the lights.
"Yes," Mari agreed. "Yes, we are."
Annabeth turned towards him, face sharpening in recognition. "I remember you! You were one of the undetermined kids in the Hermes cabin, years ago."
"Yeah." Ethan nodded. "You're Annabeth, the smart one. That's Mari, the one who went missing. I remember."
"Oi!" Mari glared at Ethan. That was not how she'd like to be described.
"What happened to your eye?" Annabeth asked. Ethan looked away. Whatever the answer was, he clearly didn't feel like sharing it.
"You must be the half-blood from my dream," Percy told Ethan. He walked over, the redhead following. Mari felt a flush of sympathy. She must be new to all this, because she seemed pretty spooked.
"What dream?" Mari asked Percy.
"I had a dream a couple of nights ago, before we went back into the labyrinth. It was of Luke and his army in the labyrinth. You were there too, but Luke wasn't focused on you. He'd cornered a-"
"Halfblood," Mari finished. Her heart dropped. That was when she'd told Luke that Mason was dead to distract him. "Did, um, did you see anything else, after that?"
"No." Percy shook his head. "I woke up before I saw who it was. I thought it was Nico, but-"
"Who's Nico?" Ethan asked.
"Never mind." Annabeth tactfully swerved the conversation away, fixing Ethan with a very unimpressed look. "Why were you trying to join up with the wrong side?"
"There is no right side," Ethan scoffed. "The gods never cared about us. Why shouldn't I-"
"Sign up for an army that makes you fight to the death for entertainment?" Annabeth asked. "Gee, I wonder."
YOU ARE READING
Melpomene (PJO)
Fantasy𝔹𝕆𝕆𝕂 𝟚 As it turned out, Mari was actually living a nice, normal and more importantly safe(ish) life somewhere sunny. Most of the time. Nobody was more surprised about this turn of events than she was. Problem was, things aren't ever that simpl...
